HARRY HICKTON BAGS POLE AT KNOCKHILL

Harry Hickton made the perfect start to his first weekend back with EXCELR8 by topping the times in qualifying for the latest rounds of the Power Maxed MINI CHALLENGE season at Knockhill.

Hickton emerged on top of a busy 30 minute session with a sizeable advantage over the field behind, which allowed him to park his car early and save tyres ahead of the remainder of the weekend.

The former Cooper champion was more than four-tenths of a second clear at one stage before his rivals behind were able to bring the gap at the top down, but Hickton would still end up nearly four-tenths of a second clear of Max Edmundson, who will join him on the front row of the grid.

“I think this is the boost that I needed,” he said. “This is an opportunity for me to rebuild my confidence a bit and this is a circuit where I was hoping we could go well after a strong showing last season.

“I’m a little bit surprised to see the gap behind but it felt like I got the perfect lap in and got it early, which meant I could park the car. I’ve always known I have the pace, and today I’ve got the car to show it.”

Edmundson would push hard to try and close in on the pole man and would end up just ahead of team-mate Alex Solley, who was one of a handful of drivers to venture out late on in the session to try and chase a quicker time.

An improved lap saw him climb up the order to end up just 0.096s down on his team-mate to head the second row of the grid ahead of Nathan Edwards.

“We didn’t plan to go back out but we had slipped down the order and ahead of the weekend, we said we didn’t really want to be further back than the third row of the grid,” he said. “When it looked like that was going to happen, we went back out and managed to find that little bit of extra time to climb back up the order.

“That’s our best qualifying of the season and hopefully we can make some improvements to the car and push for the podium.”

Fourth for Edwards marked his best qualifying result since the season opener at Donington Park, with the top six being completed by current points leader and top rookie Olivier Algieri.

Josh Porter was seventh to complete four EXCELR8 drivers covered by less than a tenth of a second, with Charlie Hand, Sam Gornall and Harry Campey rounding out the top ten.

Second fastest times saw Hickton once again head Edmondson to set the grid for race one with Edwards and Ovenden behind on the second row.

In JCW Sport, Alfie Garford was the man to beat as he outpaced team-mate Murray Richardson, setting a best time just off the rear of the JCW field.